Deploying Grouper for access management offers many advantages and efficiencies. During the initial stages of deploying Grouper, important tasks include creating a group structure, establishing and maintaining processes for folders, groups and memberships, assigning the correct privileges, integrating with other enterprise applications, training the appropriate staff, just to name a few.

For the past year, a group of 10 campuses have worked together to adopt one or more components of the TIER software — an identity and access management suite consisting of Shibboleth, Grouper, COmanage, midPoint, and other components. The philosophy behind this Campus Success Program (CSP) is that collaborating would make things easier for the individual campuses and will help accelerate software adoption.

By Jack Suess, Vice President of Information Technology and CIO, University of Maryland-Baltimore County

In 2000, UMBC was picked as one of ten institutions for a program named the Internet2 Early Adopters program. The aim of that program was to establish LDAP-based identity services and set up an Identity Management System.

The Campus Success Program (CSP) includes 10 schools working together to adopt one or more components of the TIER (Trust and Identity in Education and Research) identity management platform (InCommon, Shibboleth, COmanage, Grouper, midPoint, and others).

Nearing the halfway point in their year-long work to adopt one or more TIER components, the Campus Success Program participants will gather at the 2018 Internet2 Global Summit (May 6-9) to hear reports from working groups and develop a work plan that will take them to October.

New and updated containers have been released for three of the four main TIER (Trust and Identity in Education and Research) components. The TIER Packaging Working Group and TIER developers and architects have now released containerized version of Shibboleth (v3.3.1), Grouper (v2.3.0), and COmanage (v3.1.0). The working group is also working to release a container for midPoint.

Working Groups for the Trust and Identity in Education and Research (TIER) program are identifying and prioritizing their work as the initial investor funding winds down this year. The working groups intend to focus on issues related to sustainability and ease of adoption.

The TIER Campus Success Program includes 10 schools working together​ to adopt one or more software components that comprise the TIER suite. As part of their commitment to creating information to help other organizations considering adoption, campus members periodically create blog posts to describe their work.

Consent-Informed Attribute Release (CAR) is a project to develop a user consent module that integrates institutional and individual preferences for releasing attributes to relying parties. CAR is intended to help users make informed and effective decisions, and to allow the institution full flexibility in managing when a user sees a consent decision and what choices are presented.

by Klara Jelinkova, VP & CIO of Rice University and Chair of the TIER Community Investor Council

This year’s Global Summit included an exciting Trust and Identity lineup. When you have a moment, watch the keynote from Ian Glazer, a well-known identity expert; the Great Identity Debate on whether SAML is still relevant as the underpinning of federations; and the session providing an overview of the governance changes in Internet2 Trust and Identity. Links to these and other sessions are included in TIER at 2017 Global Summit in DC - A Review.

The latest TIER release (Release 17040*) includes several new and updated features, including a simplified installation process and a TIER Beacon function that will help developers and investors understand deployment trends. The release includes the latest versions of all three TIER components (Shibboleth 3.3.1, Grouper 2.3.0, and COmanage 2.0.0).

This also begins the TIER continuous release process, in which updates will be incorporated into the software as soon as they are ready for production, rather than waiting for a pre-determined release date. This will enable adopters to quickly take advantage of improvements and new features.

Helen Patton’s career in IT has spanned the private sector and academia. Before entering academia Helen worked as the Information Technology Risk Manager for JP Morgan Chase bank. “I got to travel the world and work globally with different teams, including the IdM operations of the bank. It was a tremendous learning experience that’s very different than higher ed,” said Helen. “The main difference I’ve found is that there is a focus on independent thought in higher ed. Unlike the private sector—especially industries as heavily regulated as banking, when you have something that is required by law—there’s still a lot of discussion on how to meet requirements. You have to convince people that there’s a good reason that’s important to them personally.”

Trust and Identity and the TIER program were at the forefront of conversations and buzz at the 2017 Global Summit in DC. Ian Glazer, the Tuesday keynote speaker at Global Summit, shared a vision of a trust, identity and security maturity model, and received rave reviews. The Trust and Identity track sessions were well attended and had excellent community participation, with special excitement around the lively Great Identity Debate, hosted by Nicole Harris and Brook Schofield of GÉANT.

Community members at the 2017 Global Summit in DC will get a fresh view of the TIER community testing and usability platform, also known as the Demo Workbench. Attendees will have the chance to see new and advanced demonstrations, examples and “showcase explanations” of work products being generated through the efforts of the TIER Working Group teams...

By Klara Jelinkova, VP & CIO of Rice University and Chair of the TIER Community Investor Council

During the month of March, Internet2 staff reached out to the TIER investor CIOs to gather your input for a “Mid-Program Review.” Many thanks to all investor CIOs who completed the survey, attended meetings or had phone calls to provide much needed insights into the program, the completed deliverables and future direction. We will provide an in-depth analysis of the feedback and discuss next steps with TIER investors at the TIER Investor Breakfast meeting on Tuesday, April 25, from 7:15–8:30 am at the Internet2 Global Summit.